A summary about the history of the brain, neurons, and all the convolute neuro brain stuff may look good at the start of the article. However, people lost in the facts all the time instead of focusing. I am not trying to amaze you with the technicality and functionality of the supreme organ that is implanted in every creature because it takes a perennial amount of time to research, understand, and write. I want to focus on the root cause of repeated thoughts, habits and how they influence our life.
Neuroplasticity
The term Neuro means "neuron connections" plasticity means "mold". The science of neurology states that there are a hundred billion neurons. These combine to form trillions of connections to transfer information via transmitters. The brain produces a thought from those connections. When we repeatedly reinforce thoughts and actions, again and again, it forms strong pattern connections in your brain called a neural pathway. Such that it is easy for the brain to generate the same neural pathways instead of a new one.
This phenomenon by which we mold our neural connections by reinforcing the useful thoughts and diminishing the unwanted thoughts is called "neuroplasticity".
The first to postulate this theory of habituation on animal and human behavior is the famous Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov who won the Nobel prize for Medicine in 1904. You may have heard his famous experiment on dogs — where every time he feeds the dogs he rings a bell. After a few days, he rings the bell without presenting food and the dogs still salivate. The dogs associated the food with the ring of the bell, and as a result, ringing the bell evoked the same response as the food itself.
These experiments led to the theory of "classical conditioning" which shed new light on human behavior. Psychologists now understood how thought patterns get etched in neural pathways in the brain.
Re-wiring your pathways
In a second many thoughts occur in your mind. The art of choosing the right one and repeating the same one, again and again, creates habits that then internally create the neural pathways in your brain. The best part is neural pathways are strengthened by integrating the same thought and be undermined by not thinking at all.
Different types of neural plasticity are structural and functional. Structural plasticity is understood as the brain's ability to change its neuronal connections. Functional plasticity refers to the brain's ability to alter and adapt the functional properties of neurons.
In the nutshell, you are the result of your neuron pathways. If you don't like any neuron pathways or mundane habits, you can change them accordingly. Let's say you are addicted to something like smoking, obese eating, alcohol, and many other things in the world that cause premature death or bother you. When you do that often it forms a habit that strengthens the neural pathways and repeatedly produces the same thoughts that play a vital role in decision-making skills to fulfill your thoughts and actions.
Assess all the harmful thoughts which are needed to be changed and change them. It is not the hard and fast rules which are available in the performance enhancement market. And it is not that simple to alter the established patterns in your brain. You need a lot of intensity, repetition, and hard work.
When you read this blog or watch a new video, learn a new language, whatever — your brain makes structural connections. When you repeat them it becomes a permanent pathway. Researchers and doctors use this in rehabs, trained athletes, children, adults, people with brain stroke — or it can be used by you as well. It helps to grow, learn, adapt, perform, and banish the harmful ones.
Thank you. I did not give you the remedies and tips on coping up with mental health and excellence — you can check them on your own. Just an intro, amazing things are there to research about plasticity. Check them out, they are interesting.
Further references on neuroplasticity — I first found plasticity in an interesting book, "The Science of Mind Management" by Swami Mukundananda.